Tuberville Questions Top Defense Nominees On Recruiting And Readiness

WASHINGTON - Yesterday,U.S. Senator Tommy Tuberville (R-AL) questioned Lieutenant General Steven Nordhaus and Vice Admiral Alvin Holsey in a Senate Armed Services Committee (SASC) hearing on their pending nominations. Senator Tuberville asked the nominees about recruitment numbers in the National Guard, the strategic importance of the Panama Canal, and the use of Saildrones in the Caribbean.

Read Senator Tuberville's remarks below or watch on YouTube or Rumble.

ON NATIONAL GUARD RECRUITING

TUBERVILLE: "Gentlemen, thanks for being here. Congratulations. Thanks for your service and your sacrifice. Lifetime of sacrifice. Both of you have done a great job. General, do you have any numbers on recruiting in the National Guard over the last couple of years?"

NORDHAUS: "Senator, as I prepped for the hearing to get with both the Army National Guard and the Air National Guard, that was one of my questions was where are they at in this year for meeting [recruitment goals] and strength? It's my understanding from them that they're both going to miss it by roughly about 700 to 800. My understanding also is that they've turned the corner coming out of the global pandemic where they weren't able to get into schools and other things where they normally recruited from. So, they're starting to see great positivity there. The Future Army Soldier Preparatory Course that the Army has done, it's my understanding, is that the Army has brought in 25,000. I believe 4,500 of those are going into the Army National Guard [as] Production Recruiters, finding assistance [and] ways to help the Production Recruiters get after recruiting, back in the schools, getting to junior colleges and those things. I'm committed, if confirmed, from my time at the Readiness Center where every day I was focused on recruiting and retention because we have to hire the best, and then we have to organize and train and equip them to do our nation's capabilities for wartime and peacetime."

TUBERVILLE: "Yeah. I think it's so important because we're not reaching our goals in full-time military. And I think it's very important for us to, you know, fill up or even exceed what we do in recruiting in National Guard. Would you agree?"

NORDHAUS: "I would agree, Senator."

ON THE U.S. INVOLVEMENT IN PANAMA

TUBERVILLE: "Yeah. Thank you. Admiral, I spent some time down in Panama the last couple of years. Done some research. We're fortunate to have a new president there in [President] Mulino. He thinks like we do. [He] wants us to have more presence there. […] What I've looked at and studied, probably one of the most asinine decisions is us fully pulling out of the Panama Canal, you know, since 1999, making that decision in the early 80s. Just talking with people down there. They're hurting economically. And when you're in that point, you're very vulnerable to Russia, China. China had their foothold in till we got this president in down there. […] I know you understand this-we need to be able to hold on to the Panama Canal because as what we're hearing, if something were to happen in the Pacific, how the hell [are we] gonna get things to the Pacific, especially from the East Coast? If we gotta go all the way down to the bottom of South America and not be able to go through the Panama Canal […] if China were to be able to block that thing off or do something, damage it or whatever. You agree with that?"

HOLSEY: "Yes, Senator."

TUBERVILLE: "The problem that they're having down there again is, […] how many people do we actually have down in the Panama area that helps with the Panamanians, with the Canal, or do we have any input at all with it?"

HOLSEY: "Yes, Senator. We generally have our SFAB teams, which are really advising assist teams down there, but I will assure you [that] just recently we just completed a PANAMAX exercise where we had hundreds of troops working together-maritime assets, aviation assets, ground assets-and again that builds that interoperability and that trust and confidence to kind of take on malign actors. So again, plus it sends a strong signal that we're working together as a team. So, we have to continue to do those type of actions."

ON MILITARY DRONES IN THE CARIBBEAN

TUBERVILLE: "Yeah. I'd really love to see this [Panamanian] President come up and visit with our people in the White House and the Pentagon because I think this is huge national security issue if we don't take care of it with this [U.S.] President because it could change very quickly. You know, if they have another regime change, their economy is really, really struggling.

To another point, tell me about the Saildrone that we use in the Caribbean and in your AOR. Do you think that they're adequate and they're doing the job that they need to do?"

HOLSEY: "Yes, sir. I like to think the Navy-I think in the last year or couple of years-we got a chance to bring Saildrones to our hybrid fleet. It's a new process by the Navy to actually get after with our limited assets. And one thing that partners always ask for is maritime domain awareness.

So, these Saildrones have been able to use them from an experimental standpoint and operational and they're showing promise. So, I think we have to continue to work […] and figure out how we can use them more so into our scheme, but we do have them located throughout the AOR."

[…]

TUBERVILLE: "How many do we have in the Caribbean? You know, do we have a dozen? Two dozen?"

HOLSEY: "Less than a dozen, Sir."

TUBERVILLE: "Yeah. Okay. You need more?"

HOLSEY: "Yes, Sir. We could use more. Yes, Sir."

TUBERVILLE: "Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Chairman."

Senator Tommy Tuberville represents Alabama in the United States Senate and is a member of the Senate Armed Services, Agriculture, Veterans' Affairs, and HELP Committees.

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